54 



CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 



I accepted the invitation with pleasure. Accordingly a short 

 time after sun-set the Chimney Swallows, which were generally dis- 

 persed about town, began to collect around the court-house, their 

 numbers every moment increasing, till, like motes in the sunbeams, 

 the air seemed full of them. These while they mingled amongst 

 each other seemingly in every direction, uttering their peculiar note 

 with great sprightliness, kept a regular circuitous sweep around the 

 top of the court-house, and about fourteen or fifteen feet above it, 

 revolving with great rapidity for the space of at least ten minutes. 

 There could not be less than four or five hundred of them. They 

 now gradually varied their line of motion until one part of its cir- 

 cumference passed immediately over the chimney and about five or 

 six feet above it. Some as they passed made a slight feint of en- 

 tering, which was repeated by those immediately after, and by the 

 whole circling multitude in succession; in this feint they approach- 

 ed nearer and nearer at every revolution, dropping perpendicu- 

 larly, but still passing over; the circle meantime becoming more 

 and more contracted, and the rapidity of its revolution greater as 

 the dusk of evening increased, until at length one, and then ano- 

 ther, dropped in, another and another followed, the circle still re- 

 volving until the whole multitude had descended except one or two. 

 These flew off as if to collect the stragglers, and in a few seconds 

 returned with six or eight more, which, after one or two rounds, 

 dropped in one by one, and all was silence for the night. It seemed 

 to me hardly possible that the internal surface of the vent could 

 accommodate them all, without clustering on one another, which I 

 am informed they never do ; and I was very desirous of observing 

 their ascension in the morning, but having to set off before day, I 

 had not that gratification. Mr. Churchman however, to whom I 

 have since transmitted a few queries, has been so obliging as to in- 

 form me, that towards the beginning of June the number of those 

 that regularly retired to the court-house to roost, was not more than 

 one-fourth of the former; that on the morning of the twenty-third 



